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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Cricket was always a fun sport to me as i had always my inclination towards football or as they call soccer in this part of the world. My favourite cricketers used to be guys who come in and start bang-bang from the word go. I never really admired a solid defense or a cover drive. Sixes and Fours and plenty of them that is all i needed. In my locality most of the people who played with me remember for those heroics with the bat especially in the last 5 over where i bat and obviously fight. The thespian shabbu who details them the story of 'Shabbu hitting Kishore for 21 runs in the last over' is a folklore and a rather tale of boasting by myself. Add to that the last bill SIX against GooglyCC this Spring.

Having said all these being part of POKRI CC (Polaris Cricket Club) has flipped me a 180. For a person who feared playing leather ball all his school and college life (because of a well directed bouncer by Bakkan to my mouth and a yorker on my toes with chappals on...gosh it was a bloody day) i have come a long way. The first fielding practice session last year TSB sent me back with a swollen palm and black fingers. But one thing that kept me going was my dire interest and my friends who play here. Then came the matches where i saw some of my teammates and opponents play cricket they way i never saw. How does one build an innings to a century or a fifty? All these years i prefered watching the highlights to that of the actual test cricket. In columbus we play a 35 overs league and its the best times i had with cricket.I realised certain shots like a sweep or a straight drive is that difficult to play and requires lot of practice.

So after one year of newly found cricketing skills my club wanted me to be the captain. Obviously not for my cricketing skills but could be my communication and man-management skills. Personally i always look upto a leadership opportunity and make myself more responsible. But its not an easy task to be a captain in cricket team, lot of stuff while a field setup or even after a silly toss. Sometimes you gotta speak to your bowler that he is absolutely wrong. But also mind that we are playing for fun and not be afraid to try new things. Maybe our team had too much fun in that regard but there were always those big match jitters. Like this last semi-finals we lost, our best fielders were dropping catches and best bowlers had no idea where they were bowling. And overall i rate my captaincy pretty average as i didnt do anything overboard and am still on a big learning curve. But every experience you get in life is a virtue once you learn from it. In that sense POKRI has taught me a lot of stuff, first is to admire this game more and second is to have a pragmatic approach towards people and issues.

I am damn sure my life is ahead is not the same any more after my rendezvous with POKRI. And am very grateful to god for that.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Those black and white dim coloured hard photographs on our albums and frames at home. All those pictures had a purpose like the annual class group photo, the fancy dress competition day, house warming, tour trip etc. Most of the tourist places we went in childhood we rarely had 10-12 pics of each place and most of them were group photos. That was the whole beauty about them when you look at them we cherish them even more. These days with the advent of digital cameras we take pictures for every minute and for a very minute reason. Though it has this slight advantage that we have a lot of memories to fall back to and we wont miss anything .But well in that case you just have to switch to a video, wouldn't you? Also watching your digital pics in your cam or laptop or a TV for that matter has its own picturesque advantage nothing beats a hard copy album.

This also makes me think the photographers in us have no discipline as to speak of. As we can easily click away and delete them later on if we dont like them. So basically we just keep clicking until our creative mind aligns with the preferred output. Had their been a limitation of some sort would we still have chosen to click away in a merry? For an India visit last year i had around 500 pics from 3 camera sources, would it be possible say 10 years back. I hope not...thats where rare photos arise to the occassion. I am not against digital photography, in a way i use them as well and use it a lot. But i dont buy those people who claim themselves to be photographers just because they have been to a Goa or a Niagara or a Taj Mahal or some other beautiful place. These days anyone could click a could picture just by putting the 'auto' mode and clicking it. And then we draw a border around it use some tools we get along these DSLR biggies and voila here we are.

Photography is a deeper hobby than we all presume, people work on light boxes, wait on facial expressions, go on an expedition and try different colour combinations and lenses. More than anything else he is never happy with what he has. It is like a burning desire. For me a good photographer is anyone who can make a simple picture as aesthetic it can be. The idea is it never goes out of your mind. I had a desktop wallpaper for a long long time, nothing but a simple tree on a cliff. Standing alone and tall and a small path leading to it. For some reason it was well composed and mixtured with natural lighting and the theme it never goes out of my head. Having said all these sometimes even i think am good at photography. I too have made some plans into venturing into it, but till then i wanna understand this big myth. I have my whole life ahead of me to kick in.

I like digging into any kinda pictures kids, personal, natural, wild life..anything you send me. I try to enjoy it, its something like a craze. But offlate i see a lot of redundancy in sunshines and plateaus that its hitting a saturation level. So people out there use your resources and bring out the Santhosh Sivan inside you..Cheers.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

I was walking down the college verandah as usual bunking a class and on my way to the Mens Hostel. Thats where most of my lethargic friends would be lazying around and rediscovering themselves. On my way i stopped by the nearest waterhole or the so called 'water cooler' standing tall in light blue just below the staircases.The usual routine is to drink water from there, stop by the co-op store to buy a Munch (chocolate) and talk to another bunch of lost souls sitting in the college portico. A few hours at the portico is worth all the time because you get to see all the young ladies passing by and also the only spot not crowded by 'couples'. You know places where guys can be guys, yell around or whistle or holler and whatever no one asks. So pitstop watercooler and i see this beautiful girl drinking water. May be i saw her from behind that made her even more attractive (oops..i had to say it..). She turns at me and smiles, WOW where was she from??? I've never seen her before or may be i never noticed. She was not the super good looking types but the one you cannot ignore types (you know what i mean). And there i happen to catch our senior whom we all call him HOD ( i have no idea why we all him that?) and i enquire to him. "HOD, who is this girl?". HOD asks "which one??". I said " The one near the notice board". HOD replies "Oh she is Nisha your batch Civil Engineering". HOD kept pouring moe details about her but all i cared was to get a good look at her before she disappears. And then after some more time there we go back to our routine trip to hostel discussing politics and football.

Next few days of the week i make quite a few trips to the Civil Department. Wow some beautiful girls out there. How could i miss these unexplored and uncharted territories?? No wonder civil guys never cut classes. So basically my time table got fuller. I had to pay visit to my classes in the morning hours to visit ladies of my hood EEE. And then there is Electrical Seniors (some fine ladies including a movie stars daughter). Then there is library where all studious chicks arrive (you know what studious chicks have no idea how damn beautiful they can be if they could look above and smile) and then the big Banyan Tree where all couples roam around . So now Civil Dept too, Man i am busy!! But then visiting these places alone has its own disadvantage, one doesnt get enough time to hang around unless we have some one inside. The guys i know there were like stuck to these girls like magents. No way they are gonna let me in and let me SHINE an dbask in my glory. Hmmm i needed an accomplice and who else than my dear friends Raghu and Unnikuttan. Unnikuttan was more than willing but in between his afternoon sleeps, dubai stories and his own struggle to find love life he had no time for my silly mouth watching affair. And more over he never trusted me any moment i would use him as a joker and make 100 jokes outta him to be star (In Tamil they say 'oorugaay'). So its pakka and finalized "Raghu is the Man". He was my class mate, always big hearted to bunk classes, has membership in college canteen, likes to admire beauty (like me) and he believes love is a crap and its for losers. It was a match made in heaven, so from next day onwards we made regular morning/afternoon/evening visits to civil verandah. The shoes i were lost more of its sole in those places than any other places in our college.

So one day raghu came up with plan 'B', it is to make friends with one of Nisha's friend circle and thats the way to get introduced to her or may be more. Mouthwatering aint it??? Yeah!! you betcha!! Out of Chitra, Anjana, Shireen and Smisha we had to pick one. And some expert advices from Sajit (apna inside man in Civil) the pick came to Anjana. Beautiful but Big Mouthed (lol) and very very hyperactive girl. Another point being the rest of the girl pack looked at us like we were hannibal lecter. She was the only with some sense of humour to keep up with us. So that moment is where this BUTTERFLY EFFECT started and now after around 7 years. Anjana is married to my accomplice Raghu and she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy "Sidharth" last week. And in case any of you were wondering "what happened to Nisha?", well thats the same question am asking you (rofl...where the hell is she??). And me, well i added her into my big "Crush list-level 3" and moved on with other crushes. The latest one being an Hispanic (mind it)..but i lack an accomplice here though. Oh in case i missed am engaged as well so i am in the process of deleting and forgetting all those crushes mandatorily. This blog might be my last piece of evidence about all those crushes... :)

So cheers and keep rocking.

NOTE: And one day Sidharth reads this blog he will understand the importance of a silly Water Cooler and the phenomenon called Butterfly Effect